If you think your portfolio has taken a hit since the beginning of the year, consider Steve Jobs and his stake in Apple: He's down $377 million and change since Jan. 1, so if anyone knows the magnitude of Apple's steep--and some say overdone--decline since then, it's the mercurial Apple chief.

What a crazy day for Apple Inc., Macworld attendees, and me. Still trying to get the feeling back in my thumbs after live-blogging, via Blackberry, during the keynote. I really hope you found that useful.

It's either an incredibly elaborate hoax or Apple Inc.'s CEO Steve Jobs is one unhappy camper this morning: It appears notes for his highly anticipated Macworld keynote address may have been leaked onto the internet last night, posting on the popular online encyclopedia web site Wikipedia.

It's the Friday before Macworld and once again, tongues are wagging about what Steve Jobs will pull out of his jeans pocket; what he might have lurking up his trademarked black sleeve; whether he can offer up something to pump some life back into this sagging stock.

I went back and forth on writing this blog, trying at once to walk that line between demolishing a cover story, and giving it more attention than it deserves. But alas, those are the struggles of today's reporting. My angst comes from an appearance I did earlier today with Adam Penenberg, a contributing writer with the magazine "Fast Company..."

This is a big couple of days for Apple; as if the company's blockbuster earnings at the beginning of the week wasn't big enough news on its own. Friday will bring the official release of the company's highly anticipated, and delayed operating system "Leopard."

The pressure was on for Apple following the big-time run in these shares these past several weeks. These shares rallied into today's earnings news. The research firm Caris just this morning took the bold step in raising its target to $200.

When it comes to Apple Inc., the bar is set so nose-bleedingly high that you gotta wonder whether this company is poised to perform or plummet when it releases earnings this evening. Shares continue to climb today, up another 2% at this writing, a kind of serene island in the midst of the volatile vagaries and stormy seas on Wall Street.

Steve Jobs has a message for third party software developers who have largely been shut out of the iPhone extravaganza: Call Us Up! In a sharp reversal to an earlier policy, and in an open letter from Jobs posted on Apple's web site, the company is now inviting software developers to create applications for the iPhone that would live on the iPhone's memory and not on the web.

Well, it's about time. That might be the familiar refrain coming from Apple investors as well as the Mac faithful who had to give up Leopard's place in the development line in favor of the company's new favorite flavor, the iPhone.

I wrote earlier today that Apple would be sending along an acknowledgment of some Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize win, and the company went a big step beyond that. Go to www.apple.com and you'll see that the company's usual home page has been replaced by a full page message to Gore, commending him on his achievement.

Al Gore is having the kind of dream year that conjures up an image of a man cheated by the gods seven years ago, and those gods have been looking to make good on their mistake ever since. How else do you explain the kind of blockbuster year he's having? Oh sure, the guy's won the Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth."

Apple shares continue to take off, thanks to news nuggets here and there about the better-than-expected iPhone sales success. In fact, shares are so high that rumblings of an impending stock split are coming back, even though CEO Steve Jobs was pretty clear at his shareholders meeting earlier this year, offering up props to the Google no-split stock-price strategy (Eric Schmidt sits on Apple's board) and steering investors away from the idea of any kind of split.

Fake Steve Jobs gripped the internet for months: Who was he? Why was he doing it? Was it really Jobs himself? Or someone else? It was a terrific mystery up until the day New York Times reporter Brad Stone unmasked Dan Lyons...

For the Tech Check segment on "Closing Bell" today, a look back and a look ahead at cool technology making headlines. First up, next Monday will be a big day for chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices. The company has rented out a big chunk of George Lucas' facility on San Francisco' Presidio where AMD will unveil its long-awaited, and long delayed server chip code-named Barcelona.

As you might imagine, the Apple news and iPod releases generated enormous interest this week, and then the news cycle kicked into overdrive yesterday with word of Apple's plans for a $100 rebate to all existing iPhone owners who bought the thing at full price just two short months ago.